Not just extreme Right who have migrant concerns

Many Australians share concerns about the mix of migrants.

Your coverage of the protest rally on St Kilda beach attended by Queensland senator Fraser Anning draws attention to his unverified relationship with Vietnamese traders who had been disrupted by youths of African origin who had also caused disruption at the very same beach (”Anning not with us: Vietnamese”, 8/1).

Anning is said to have a “far Right” view but his expressed concern about immigrants having Islamic characteristics or having African origin may not be confined to those with a “far Right” view. As indicated by the recent debate on immigration, most Australians recognise there is limited absorption capacity in terms of numbers and characteristics that extend beyond our Euro-Judeo culture.
The UK is attempting to stop illegal immigration across the English channel from many who see it as an El Dorado. And while France is still officially welcoming migrants, surveys reveal a majority of the French population want immigration halted or regulated drastically. That President Macron's polling has fallen to only 18 per cent, and that changes are favoured to the hundreds of no-go zones under the control of imams and Muslim gangs, indicates the importance of having an acceptable population mix from immigrants.

Des Moore, South Yarra, Vic

If Fraser Anning or Blair Cottrell were elected to Parliament in their own right at the next election I doubt the government of the day, despite the urgings of elements of the Left, would constitutionally be able to ignore their vote.

The moral outrage afoot at the moment brings me to question whether the present setting of our moral compass as a nation has become too narrow. Those of us old enough would remember John Cleese’s goose-stepping, raised-arm depiction of Adolf Hitler in the rib-tickling television show Fawlty Towers. In the same era Irish comedian Dave Allen would have us laughing until we cried lampooning the Catholic Church and telling Irish jokes — a no-no today. “Political correctness” wasn’t in the Oxford Dictionary. Not a soul batted an eyelid yet here we are almost 70 years later in what is deemed a progressive society with a register of subjects that are taboo.

Graham Wheeler, Gulliver, Qld

Why was there no comment from most of the media and almost all our politicians about the brazen display of the Antifa flag at the St Kilda protests? The flag depicts two flags, one black, one red, symbolising an alliance between the extreme ideologies of of communism and anarchism. This is an organisation that has been described by the US Department of Homeland Security as a perpetrator of “domestic terrorist activity”. Far from being the ordinary, peace-loving “anti-fascists”, as they like to depict themselves, these people are, in fact, totalitarians who violently oppose anyone they disagree with.

Jeremy C. Browne, Ripponlea, Vic

Juxtaposing your Letters page with that of The Cairns Post yesterday would suggest that the assertions of your contributors that Senator Anning's career in the Senate will be short lived are not shared by the majority of missive writers in your sister newspaper.

Rod Owens, Cairns, Qld

Frazer Anning has been widely condemned recently by all and sundry for attending a rally and being a racist in the process. From the outset, he has never shied away from his view on Islam and Muslims, which he sees as being bad for Australia. Is condemning Islam racist? I always thought that Islam was a religion, not a race.

Paul Murray, Oxley, Qld

With all the heated interest in “far-right” rallies, I'm wondering about “far-left” ones. If they exist, are they as reprehensible as their sister rally, and would a short-sighted politician who attended one be similarly pilloried?

Rosemary O'Brien, Georges Hall, NSW

I attended rallies in support of ending David Hicks’ lengthy incarceration in Guantanamo Bay without charges laid or a trial. I don't consider myself a Muslim extremist or terrorist.

So I think it is a bit rich for the gaggle of politicians to suggest senator Fraser Anning is “siding with neo-Nazis”.

Their time would be better spent on reforming our preferential voting system. The mind boggles at how someone receiving 19 votes can suggest they represent the voters of Queensland.

John Busselmaier, New Farm, Qld